GitHub Projects is the most underrated project management tool in the space. It is free, it lives next to your code, and it has gotten genuinely good over the last two years. Table views, board views, roadmaps, custom fields, iteration support, built-in automation via GitHub Actions. For a lot of dev teams it is the obvious starting point, and not just because it is free.
But there is a class of team for whom GitHub Projects creates more friction than it removes. Specifically: teams running structured sprints with a real backlog, carry-over logic, dependency tracking, and cross-project visibility. GitHub Projects can approximate all of these things. The question is whether approximation is good enough, or whether the configuration overhead to get there defeats the purpose.
Where GitHub Projects is genuinely strong
GitHub Projects is not a basic Kanban board. It is worth being precise about this because a lot of comparisons undersell it. You get multiple view types including table, board, and roadmap. You can add custom fields for story points, priority, status, or anything else. Issues and pull requests pull in automatically from linked repositories. Iterations (GitHub's version of sprints) are supported natively, with start and end dates, and issues can be assigned to an iteration from the planning view.
The integration with the rest of GitHub is the real strength. When a PR is opened or merged, it can automatically update the linked issue's status. You can see development status on a planning item without leaving the board. For a team that does most of its communication through GitHub issues and PRs, keeping planning there removes a context switch that adds up across a day.
It is also free at any team size, which matters for early-stage teams watching every line of spend.
Where GitHub Projects falls short for sprint teams
The friction with GitHub Projects for sprint-based teams comes from the same place as Notion's: it is a flexible tool you configure into a sprint workflow, not a tool where the sprint workflow is the default. The gap shows up in specific places.
There is no native backlog concept separate from the board. Everything in a GitHub Project is an item in the project. If you want a backlog view separate from the active iteration, you build it with a filtered view using an Iteration field set to a specific value, or a Status field you manage manually. It works, but it is configuration you have to maintain. If someone adds an issue without setting the right field values, it ends up in the wrong view or no view at all.
Carry-over handling at sprint close is not automated. When an iteration ends in GitHub Projects, incomplete items do not automatically move to the next iteration or return to a backlog queue. You do it manually. For a team closing sprints every two weeks, that is a recurring manual process that a dedicated sprint tool handles automatically.
Dependency management between issues is limited. GitHub has a native Blocked by relationship, but it is simple and not surfaced prominently during sprint planning or on the board view. If you want to see which stories in the current sprint are blocking other stories, or visualize the full dependency chain across sprints, you are not getting that from GitHub Projects without additional tooling.
Cross-project visibility is weak. GitHub Projects are per-repository or per-organization, but generating a unified view of sprint health, blockers, and workload across multiple projects requires building custom views or using the API. For a small team running two or three projects in parallel, this gets tedious fast.
The onboarding friction for non-GitHub users is real. If your team includes designers, a product manager, or a founder who is not living in GitHub day to day, asking them to manage work through GitHub Projects adds a tool they may not have a reason to otherwise use. A standalone PM tool lowers that barrier.
What Orvezo does differently
Orvezo is built around the assumption that sprint workflow should be the default state, not something you configure. The backlog is a first-class concept separate from the active sprint. The parking lot holds ideas and deprioritized work without cluttering the queue. Sprint planning is a deliberate step where you pull stories from the backlog and commit them. The board reflects exactly what is in scope for the current sprint.
When a sprint closes, uncommitted work rolls back to the backlog automatically. Carry-over is handled, not manual. Dependencies between stories are modeled explicitly with two types: Blocks for active impediments and Depends On for planned sequencing. Both are visible on the dependency canvas and on the board, not buried in an issue detail page.
Cross-project reporting is built in at the workspace level. You can see sprint health, blocked work, workload distribution, epic progress, and delivery trends across all your projects in one view. GitHub Projects does not have an equivalent without custom work.
The AI integration via MCP is also different in scope. GitHub Projects supports MCP for interacting with repository-linked items. Orvezo's MCP integration covers the full sprint workflow: creating stories, moving work between backlog and sprint, assigning, updating status, and summarizing what shipped. For teams using Claude or ChatGPT in their development process, this means the PM tool can be managed through the same interface they are already using.
The honest decision framework
GitHub Projects is the right call if your team already manages work through GitHub issues and PRs, wants planning close to code, and does not need the overhead of a separate tool. It is particularly strong if your development workflow is tight with GitHub Actions and you want automated status updates tied to PR events. If you are a purely engineering team that never needs a non-developer to look at the project board, GitHub Projects may be all you need.
Orvezo is the right call if you keep building workarounds in GitHub Projects to get a proper backlog, handle carry-over, or track dependencies. If your team includes anyone who does not live in GitHub, a designer, a co-founder, a product manager, Orvezo gives them a tool they can use without a GitHub account or context. And if you are running multiple projects and need a unified view of what is happening across all of them, that visibility is built in from day one.
The pricing argument is not the deciding factor here since GitHub Projects is free. The argument is whether the configuration overhead of making GitHub Projects work like a sprint tool is worth the cost of a dedicated one. For teams that have felt that friction, the answer tends to be no.